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BOSTON – Sleep strengthens declarative memory, a finding that could one day be exploited to combat cognitive declines associated with dementia and neurologic disorders, Dr. Jeffrey M. Ellenbogen reported at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Neurology.
Sleep previously has been shown to improve motor, visual, and perceptual memories in humans, but this study is one of the first to substantiate a role for sleep in protecting declarative or consciously discussed memories from associative interference, said Dr. Ellenbogen of Harvard Medical School, Boston.
For the study, 48 healthy individuals, aged 18–30 years, were evaluated. No participants took any medications, and all had normal sleep patterns. Subjects were placed in one of four groups, and all were asked to remember 20 words, each of which was paired with an associated word cue.
All groups were tested for their abilities to remember the associated words 12 hours after learning the list. No one in the study was sleep deprived, but the subjects in two groups slept before testing and those in the other two groups did not.
The individuals who slept remembered 94% of the associations; those who did not sleep remembered 82% of the words. Those differences fell just short of statistical significance (P = .06).
The differences were marked, however, in the remaining two groups subjected to associative interference. For this part of the study, both groups also learned the same list of 20 word associations.
Again, one group slept and the other did not, and both groups were tested at 12 hours. But 12 minutes before they were tested on the list of words, both groups were subjected to associative interference. They were asked to learn a second list of 20 additional words related to the same word cues. Subjects who had slept and were introduced to the second list of words were able to recall 76% of the word associations from the first list. The subjects who had not slept were able to remember just 32% of the words. The difference in performance was highly significant (P less than .0001).
Sleep is ultimately a brain state that may hold the keys to understanding the neurobiology of memory consolidation, he said. The next step in his research will be to look at the relationships between sleep disorders, cognitive impairment, and neurologic disorders. Dr. Ellenbogen's research was supported by the National Institutes of Health and the University of Pennsylvania's Nassau Undergraduate Research Fund.
BOSTON – Sleep strengthens declarative memory, a finding that could one day be exploited to combat cognitive declines associated with dementia and neurologic disorders, Dr. Jeffrey M. Ellenbogen reported at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Neurology.
Sleep previously has been shown to improve motor, visual, and perceptual memories in humans, but this study is one of the first to substantiate a role for sleep in protecting declarative or consciously discussed memories from associative interference, said Dr. Ellenbogen of Harvard Medical School, Boston.
For the study, 48 healthy individuals, aged 18–30 years, were evaluated. No participants took any medications, and all had normal sleep patterns. Subjects were placed in one of four groups, and all were asked to remember 20 words, each of which was paired with an associated word cue.
All groups were tested for their abilities to remember the associated words 12 hours after learning the list. No one in the study was sleep deprived, but the subjects in two groups slept before testing and those in the other two groups did not.
The individuals who slept remembered 94% of the associations; those who did not sleep remembered 82% of the words. Those differences fell just short of statistical significance (P = .06).
The differences were marked, however, in the remaining two groups subjected to associative interference. For this part of the study, both groups also learned the same list of 20 word associations.
Again, one group slept and the other did not, and both groups were tested at 12 hours. But 12 minutes before they were tested on the list of words, both groups were subjected to associative interference. They were asked to learn a second list of 20 additional words related to the same word cues. Subjects who had slept and were introduced to the second list of words were able to recall 76% of the word associations from the first list. The subjects who had not slept were able to remember just 32% of the words. The difference in performance was highly significant (P less than .0001).
Sleep is ultimately a brain state that may hold the keys to understanding the neurobiology of memory consolidation, he said. The next step in his research will be to look at the relationships between sleep disorders, cognitive impairment, and neurologic disorders. Dr. Ellenbogen's research was supported by the National Institutes of Health and the University of Pennsylvania's Nassau Undergraduate Research Fund.
BOSTON – Sleep strengthens declarative memory, a finding that could one day be exploited to combat cognitive declines associated with dementia and neurologic disorders, Dr. Jeffrey M. Ellenbogen reported at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Neurology.
Sleep previously has been shown to improve motor, visual, and perceptual memories in humans, but this study is one of the first to substantiate a role for sleep in protecting declarative or consciously discussed memories from associative interference, said Dr. Ellenbogen of Harvard Medical School, Boston.
For the study, 48 healthy individuals, aged 18–30 years, were evaluated. No participants took any medications, and all had normal sleep patterns. Subjects were placed in one of four groups, and all were asked to remember 20 words, each of which was paired with an associated word cue.
All groups were tested for their abilities to remember the associated words 12 hours after learning the list. No one in the study was sleep deprived, but the subjects in two groups slept before testing and those in the other two groups did not.
The individuals who slept remembered 94% of the associations; those who did not sleep remembered 82% of the words. Those differences fell just short of statistical significance (P = .06).
The differences were marked, however, in the remaining two groups subjected to associative interference. For this part of the study, both groups also learned the same list of 20 word associations.
Again, one group slept and the other did not, and both groups were tested at 12 hours. But 12 minutes before they were tested on the list of words, both groups were subjected to associative interference. They were asked to learn a second list of 20 additional words related to the same word cues. Subjects who had slept and were introduced to the second list of words were able to recall 76% of the word associations from the first list. The subjects who had not slept were able to remember just 32% of the words. The difference in performance was highly significant (P less than .0001).
Sleep is ultimately a brain state that may hold the keys to understanding the neurobiology of memory consolidation, he said. The next step in his research will be to look at the relationships between sleep disorders, cognitive impairment, and neurologic disorders. Dr. Ellenbogen's research was supported by the National Institutes of Health and the University of Pennsylvania's Nassau Undergraduate Research Fund.